


Time of No Reply

by greenapricot



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-04
Updated: 2005-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapricot/pseuds/greenapricot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not how he had expected war to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time of No Reply

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2005. Set some indeterminate time post HBP. Title from Nick Drake.

This is not how he had expected war to be. 

War. The word has been echoing in his head for years as a thing inevitable. An end. _The_ end to Voldemort and his followers and the expectation in the eyes of every witch or wizard Harry meets. The great decisive blow dealt. War. The word echoes off the back of his skull over and over and over before it solidifies into nothing at all.

If he stopped to think about it — and he won't — he would realize that he doesn't know what he expected. But he can't stop, can't think. If he stopped to think about anything he might not start again, and he can't let that happen.

If he stopped to think he would realize he's not sure what he expected. Glory maybe, or something like it. Justification for everything terrible thing that has happened to him. Triumph, banners flying, high level planning meetings and discussions in which he has valuable insight and opinions to offer. Schemes. He and Ron and Hermione together through it all.

But those are a child's romantic ideas of war, where good always triumphs and none of one's friends ever get hurt; cavalry marching across a green green field their colorful banners flying high against a deep blue sky. The reality is of crumbling buildings and grey sky, grey earth, the color leeched out of everything. A world in which Ron's hair was far too red, too noticeable, and Harry had to shield his eyes as he walked behind him. 

A world of echoes, echoes and green, the sound of glass breaking, a ricochet and a flash. The figure walking in front of Harry collapsing and that's it. They don't move again. 

Dead. _Dead._

He's dead. She's dead. Harry's heard the word so often now the meaning has become fuzzy, blurred like the air in front of his face as the ash swirls in behind a sudden movement. The dust settles and chokes and he pulls his now grey scarf over his mouth. Another dead. The words are nothing but syllables against the roof of his mouth, behind his teeth, in his head. Echoing. Just echoes, echoes and green. 

He should move now. Hide. Run. Something. Now that- The name is gone. The person in front of him had a name but now it's gone, erased the second their living existence stopped. That's the only way to survive. That's what he tells himself. That's why he never steps around a corner first. 

Harry never sees the caster of the spells, the new sniper spells prevent that. Such innovation. With war comes such innovation. It would have been inconceivable two years ago to think that the killing curse could be cast from hundreds of yards away and still be so effective. Inconceivable to think that other wizards could fall dead in front of him and he would barely stop walking. But he can't, he can't stop. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Or, wait. No. It does. That's why he has to keep moving.

The only difference between walking and falling is that the next foot follows the first.

And the only way to get through this is to push it out of his mind as soon as possible, think of something else and focus on the goal ahead. The next battle, the next— There is no next thing anymore, though. Just chaos. And he should move but. How many times has he seen this happen before? Too many. Too many to count and certainly too many to name. 

The world has been distilled down to echoes and green flashes against grey stone, grey sky, half formed thoughts and the scrape of boots over rubble. There's a sniper up there somewhere barely fifty yards away on top of that building but Harry will never see him.

Harry had never thought the color green could seem so sinister, it's only a color after all. The color of leaves, the color of life, and the color of death as it turns out. Strange that they should be the same. Harry is almost glad the trees are all dead; nothing but branches reaching spindly fingers toward the stoney sky. The facades of buildings crumbling, paint peeling away leaving stone, brick plaster; muted colors. The colors have all been leached out by constant bombardment, spell after spell after spell. It makes it easier to tell where the threat is, the threat is color. Nothing that can't move on it's own has any color left.

There is not enough contrast, not enough to differentiate a figure from the background until it moves. There are no real shadows and no real light, just twilight. People move like ghosts in the grey light, the colors of too much magic, sinister magic, hanging over every skirmish, every battle. But he can't really call them battles anymore, there aren't enough wizards left for battles.

It was Voldemort who led them here, dragged them here, to these places where the language sticks on the tongue and Harry can feel something lurking in the very stones. That something is why they were here. Why he is here. 

There isn't a 'they' any longer but Harry still thinks of those who where standing behind him. Those who were standing in front of him. That was why he had wanted to go on alone. 

_Neither can live while the other survives._ Apparently there were a lot more than one who could not live.

Voldemort had been searching for something, tracing a twisting path across the continent: Bratislava, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest. Harry drew closer, closer, closer and suddenly Voldemort was gone, leaving not a trace. Only a snake. 

Every city blurs into the next, the languages tickle the roof of Harry's mouth, V's and Z's and J's and accents in odd places. He tries to wrap his mouth around the sounds, learn the words, but everything comes out Parseltongue and people shy away from him. 

Harry hasn't had a full night's sleep in nearly two years. It does strange things to him sleeping in fits and starts and catnaps, catching bits of sleep here and there but never the real thing. It's begun to make him feel he's not really part of the world. Real people sleep. This is some sort of half life where he knows he's following something but he's no longer completely sure why that it is. Some days he almost stops, turns around, but when he closes his eyes he sees red hair and green light, grey ash swirling around a fallen body. And he keeps on.

When it rains there is a little relief. It is cold but water tamps things down a bit, washes the dust away; swirls the ash in puddles and grey streams over broken cobbles instead of choking clouds around his head. Breathing is easier but the soreness in his throat never lessens.

Sometimes Harry gets the feeling that the buildings themselves are working against him, the streets moving as he walks. There is an older magic here, something deeper. It lurks in the foundations. The origins of magic are here somewhere in these stones, in some long forgotten catacomb where water trickles between foundations. There is undoubtedly something old here, something unaccountably old and far more powerful than anything Harry has ever seen. It whispers at him as he passes, draws patterns in the dirt, in the stone, tries to throw him off the trail.

In smaller cities and hidden corners there are still shops running ever slowing businesses; the diversity of their wears dwindling along with the number of customers. Potato dumplings, dark meat, slowly warming beer. Harry eats his fill when he can, tucked away down a narrow side street, always late at night. Always at the sort of place with a table or two outside on the narrow pavement because there's not enough space for chairs inside. Domed churches loom above him in the darkness and he slouches into his cloak trying to become one with the shadows.

And then he walks some more.

Nagini's path is easy to follow. He imagines each city she enters withering as she passes like foxglove freezing in a Dementor's path, but he knows that's not it. The Death Eaters are following her now and the destruction is all that's left of the resistance. What little wood there is has been stripped from every building; windows broken, mullions, sashes, paneling, doors, anything that can be burnt carted away. It's too dangerous to make a fire with magic. There's no telling who can detect his signature, who's watching, who's listening. It makes him twitchy.

The snake is leading him along the same twisting path, the same unfamiliar cities turned familiar with repetition, circling slowly toward something but never reaching it. He can feel her when he gets closer, the thin thread that connects them going slack. If he can feel it she can feel it as well even if she cannot sever it like her master could. She only lets him get so close before she's off again, the thread stretching. She is taunting him, toying with him; a predator tiring it's prey before the final strike. He tells himself that he will be ready when the strike comes, that he will stop the fangs before they sink into his flesh. 

He tells himself that he won't end up face down on some anonymous ash grey street, rock dust settling in his black hair and no one around to witness it. That's not going to happen to him, he's the Chosen One, that wouldn't be dramatic enough of an end for him. He won't go out with a whimper. When he goes there will be a bang.


End file.
